Today: A no-cook, company-worthy sauce that fits right into our laziest pasta-dressing habits.

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Boiling pasta is what we do when we don't know what to do -- it's in our muscle memory as cooks. But most of our go-to dressy pastas still demand attention.

Carbonara expects us to maneuver eggs. Linguine con vongole: to dance with clams. Cacio e pepe: to swirl a molten sauce out of butter and dry cheese. And none of them, once maneuvered, is terribly willing to sit around and wait for dinner.

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So aren't you pleased that this is a pasta that doesn't expect hand-eye coordination or time management? It's just as happy being served hot, warm, even cold. And all you have to do -- other than boiling pasta (you've got this) -- is put items in a bowl and stir.

In other words, it's what you serve when you want to throw a dinner party and come across as blithely, gloriously relaxed as Nigella Lawson always does. She says this is one of her proudest creations.

But it's also a pasta that you can happily cook alone, and eat alone until you can't eat any more. Then pack up whatever's left -- for lunch, or tomorrow's dinner, or Saturday's picnic, or a cold midnight snack.

This is how it will go -- you'll be eating linguine in 20:

Put a pot of water on to boil. Throw in a fistful of salt. Find a large, handsome serving bowl and start piling stuff in.

Slice mushrooms thinly. Pull thyme from its sprigs. (Nigella would like them to be "gorgeously scented" -- see what you can do about that.) Zest and juice a lemon. Mince a clove of garlic into tiny bits. Put it all in the bowl, and stir it together with salt and olive oil.

By the time you turn back to the mushrooms, the salt has pulled out their bloat and they've drunk up the dressing. They've, essentially, cooked. They just don't know it.

Most pasta recipes would have you reserve a cup of pasta water for some oft-unannounced purpose, but Nigella gets right to it -- she has you drain the pasta only loosely, hanging onto whatever salty, thick water clings to the noodles.

Got a genius recipe to share -- from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected]. Thanks to Food52er Hippy in the Kitchen for this one!

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I'm an ex-economist, ex-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."

Simple and delicious. Big hit, couldn't stop eating it. Like most people, I sauteed the mushrooms in the butter to avoid any complaints about the texture of raw mushrooms. However, if I do that again I recommend reducing the amount of olive oil you put into the dish since it was a little too greasy with the butter clinging to the mushrooms plus the olive oil.

Oh my gosh, all my favorites ... lemon, mushrooms, garlic, thyme ... sounds like the perfect summer night dinner! I am thinking this would work well camping; arrange the mushroom mixture ahead, cook the pasta over the campfire and serve a gourmet meal while everyone else is eating hot dogs.

If you're concerned about the flavor density in the dish as other readers have, I suggest making this for no more than 4 people, unless you up the "sauce" ingredients. I served this for 3 of us last night and it was delicious. Not too lemony at all (and I had the mushrooms marinating in the lemon/oil/garlic/thyme for several hours). Throw in a few capers if you want additional zing.

I just put the finishing touches on this fabulous recipe and can't wait to taste it (altho' I have nibbled a little bit of it). I am trying to eliminate dairy from my diet for a month and that's why I tried this recipe. I am sure I will love it even with no parmesan (maybe).

I just made this for dinner. Wow! What amazing flavors. A new pasta favorite. I followed the recipe exactly. It was a tad salty, so next time I'll use a "scant" tablespoon of Kosher salt on the mushrooms. Great recipe for when the thyme is overflowing out of the garden!